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Comment by jbk | Hacker News Reader

So, there is not much information on the website yet, but this is basically a full stack for mobiles, based on Wayland and Kwin for the UI and Ofono for the phone part.

The reference implementation is based on Ubuntu Touch, and use libhybris to get hw support. However, it's different from UT, by the fact that it's not using Mir, but Wayland directly through Kwin.

It seems to run Ubuntu Touch applications, X11 applications, KDE/QML ones and Jolla/Sailfish/Nemo ones. They seem to have Android apps on the roadmap too.

Except the drivers (through libhybris), everything is open source and numerous KDE/QML apps can run without modifications. It can also run without libhybris if you have kernel DRM.

The distribution is based on Kubuntu, and so far it works only on the Nexus 5.

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Right, here's the stack as a quick recap: Kubuntu with systemd + Android GPU driver via libhybris + kwin as Wayland display server and compositor (with a hwcomposer backend for the renderer) + plasmashell + phone shell package. Ofono for GSM. Regular Linux desktop bits for everything else.

This different from e.g. Firefox OS which relies on Android's SurfaceFlinger as display server, or Ubuntu Phone which uses their own Mir windowing system. The proprietary bits we rely on on a phone-by-phone basis (GPU drivers, radio) are abstracted away behind standard APIs (GLES) or Ofono, so all of this also runs on e.g. the desktop Mesa GL stack unmodified. The use of Kubuntu or systemd are incidental (the Kubuntu community has been a great aid!); nothing prevents any other distro from taking this - all on regular kde.org master branches slated for eventual release - and putting things together in the usual ways.

We also got full open governance and no mandatory central copyright assignment at kde.org, unlike some other open-ish phone projects.

As for convergence options -- plasmashell is in principle designed to be able to load and swap shell packages at runtime, while potentially retaining state. We're not quite there yet (e.g. because our Wayland bits are not up to supporting the full desktop just yet), but at some point we hope to allow you to dock your phone via HDMI, bring up Plasma Desktop on the attached monitor and e.g. retain your notifications.

Great project, can`t wait to play with it.

Just a little nitpick, as far as I know Firefox OS is not using SurfaceFlinger but talking direct to the GL layer.

Looks like you're entirely right: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Platform/Arch...

Sorry! FWIW, there's an old ZTE Open bought retail during a KDE event in Spain on this desk somewhere and I consider Firefox OS a a Very Good Thing. :)

Hey, there more systems available for the users the better! :D

Thanks for the kind words about Firefox OS. As soon as I get a hardware compatible with Plasma Phone, I am taking it for a spin :-D

Are you working on merging the Linux kernel forks back into the mainline Linux kernel?

Will you port to the Neo900 when it comes out?

Are there plans to expand hardware options? Is there a donate option? I can't wait to stop dealing with running Android.

I would image it should be able to run on Ubuntu phones. Also, and I'm guessing here, Tizen devices, if we ever get them.

And that, I have no idea, sorry. :D

I guess that if it works with Ubuntu Touch, like Nexus 4 or the Meizu.

HW Expansion : Not that I'm aware of.

Donations : https://www.kde.org/

Thanks for the support :)

I sure hope. This would improve affordability for anyone who wants to create startups with hardware.

I'd be very interested in porting MOAI to this - do you know if it supports SDL, or OpenGL ES apps?

Technically, you should be able to support both.

Cool, I'm going to look into doing the port in the near future then ..

It does! The shell UI itself is a GLES app, and SDL 2.x has experimental Wayland support.

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